Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Seems like what you're arguing. You want us NOT to have a good system, or else Mexicans will cross the border to try to use it. Right?
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Universal health care would be a good thing
- Thread starter Autodidact
- Start date
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
And I suppose you have data to support this baseless assertion?
I say we pay more to build buildings like this:
(Blue Cross Building, Chicago.) Not a single person in this building provides medical care to a single patient. Our money built it and pays the salary of everyone who works there.)
If our doctors are so much better, why isn't our mortality better? Other countries, those with universal health care, have better longevity and infant mortality. Why is that?
We pay twice as much. Are our doctors twice as good?
If you don't have a doctor, then it doesn't really make a difference how good the doctor you don't have is, does it?
Here's a question for you: who is more satisfied with their health care, Canadians or Americans? If the answer turns out to be Canadians, would that affect your views?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
You have data to support this? Do American doctors make more than French doctors? Do they provide better care? Then why do French people live longer than Americans?
Have you noticed your tendency to make unsupported assertions and then consider them to be proven? If you want us to accept this, provide data to support it. For example, are doctors fleeing France to work in the U.S.? Have you ever been seen by a French doctor? Dutch? German? I haven't. I've been seen by a few from India--that's about it. Where do you speculate American doctors will flee to, Mexico?
In any case, if everyone's getting quality care, then what do I care how much $ the doctors earn?
But I don't have to shuffle figures to make it look good. It is good; which is what the figures show. What figures do you think would be relevant? Yes, you're right, it will take time to realize the full benefit of universal coverage, so the sooner we make the change, the better.
And Rick, I don't take kindly to being called a liar. I work very hard to be accurate, and my reputation and honor are VERY important to me. If you want to call me a liar, you better be ready to either (a) prove it or (b) apologize and retract it. Please provide a single post in this thread where I have posted a single statement that is not true. If you cannot, then take your spurious slander and put it where it belongs.
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Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
The bottom line is, people are getting health care right now whether they can afford it or not. But they're getting expensive, ineffective, wasteful care in our emergency rooms, instead of cheap, effective, preventative care in doctor's offices. I say, if we're going to treat people, let's do it in the most effective way.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
No, it's not. Have you read the thread? There's lots of good cites and data in this thread that absolutely prove that you are flat out wrong. The U.S. most emphatically does NOT have the best health care system in the world, France does. What data are you citing in support of your false assertion? Or have you personally sampled the health systems of every country in the world?
McBell
Admiral Obvious
Based upon his arguments, I strongly suspect that this is the real reason he is so opposed to it.
Nemesis_of_3vil
Member
Wow, try reading my post again, I'll repeat it in bold to compensate your poor vision...
WE HAVE THE BEST DOCTORS, do you see the word 'healthcare' in that sentence at all?
NO,
Alceste
Vagabond
So your theory is that you have the best doctors, but they just choose to provide inferior health care? Great theory.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Still looking for that data. Got the consumer comparisons to show that our doctors are the best in the world?
btw, what good is a doctor is you don't have one?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I think it would have to be that our health care system is so screwed up that we manage to take the best doctors in the world and still provide inferior care.
Nemesis_of_3vil
Member
your right, our system is messed up, but that doesn't mean we don't have the best doctors. its just common sense,
I never had a theory, I just stated a simple fact, nothing more,
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
If you stated a single face anywhere in this thread, I must have missed it. What fact was that? Because so far all I've seen is your unfounded and false opinions. For example, you keep saying that the U.S. has the best doctors. On what do you base this? Have you read some international surveys? Have you been treated by doctors in various countries? Or did you possibly just make it up?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Nemesis, maybe you missed this question:
Autodidact, I don't believe I have called anyone a liar on RF ever as I recall. Liar is a word I seldom ever use. I have never meant any disrespect towards you and I regret saying anything that would have given you that impression.
You all seem to believe this is a no brainer and I am somehow too dense to see the same conclusions you do.
For the life of me, I cannot see how more people are going to use the same available amount of services without waiting longer and costing us less to boot. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, that is all I am saying.
Either doctors are going to work harder for less money or a NHP is going to cost us more than you think it is. That is all I am saying.
You all seem to believe this is a no brainer and I am somehow too dense to see the same conclusions you do.
For the life of me, I cannot see how more people are going to use the same available amount of services without waiting longer and costing us less to boot. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, that is all I am saying.
Either doctors are going to work harder for less money or a NHP is going to cost us more than you think it is. That is all I am saying.
LittlePinky82
Well-Known Member
I suggest you watch the Michael Moore movie. You can probably find it on Google Video by now. Or if you want you can probably rent it at your local video store. It will answer a lot of question's and myths and concerns people have about a socialist health care system. He talks to doctors and nurses in other countries too which is awesome to hear from them how it goes. One dr in France lives very nicely with his family. Our government is of, by and for the people. We should want the best and to take care of each other. Why is it all the other industrialized nations of the planet have a program but us?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
O.K. understood.
Not at all. To tell the truth, Rick, until you said on another thread that universal health care would raise our taxes, I really didn't know the facts myself. I had no real position on the issue. In researching it, I was surprised to find out that countries with universal health care spend dramatically less than we do. At first I couldn't understand how that can be. So I don't think you're dense at all. It is counterintuitive that covering everybody costs less than covering 85% of the people. It actually costs us money NOT to cover people, and costs us more money only to partially cover most of us. Why is this?
I don't really know, and I'm just guessing, but I think it's because:
--they spend no money on the health insurance industry itself. This is an enormous industry in the U.S. that provides no care to anyone, earns billions of dollars of profit, and costs all of us to sustain it.
--they don't spend money to treat sick people in the emergency room. Instead, they use sensible, cost-effective delivery models.
--A little preventative care goes a long way to saving more expensive hospitalization.
--the single-payer negotiates lower rates with doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other health providers. Because they are the single payer, they have a lot of clout in the negotiation.
--there may be some other reasons that I'm too ignorant to guess.
The bottom line is that the fact is that it is cheaper. And provides better care. And I'm all about the facts.
So, what, the WHO is lying? The U.N. is lying? The governments are all lying, and nobody noticed? It's not too good to be true, it's just good, and true.
The important thing to grasp is that it's not more people. Everyone gets treated now. They just get treated in the stupidest, least effective, most expensive way--in the emergency room. It's cheaper to treat 100 people in a clinic than 10 people in the emergency room. Then they get billed, they can't pay the bill, they go bankrupt, their house gets foreclosed, and we all suffer. Great system, eh?
Do the math. What if you just take the 1/3 (or whatever it is) cut that the insurance industry makes and give it to the doctors? Shazzam, more money, just like magic. I ask you again, why would it cost Americans more than Canadians? Are we sicker? Why would it cost us more than Spaniards? Are we dumber? My daddy used to say that smart people learn from other people's experience. Why can't we learn from the Australian's experience?
Take LittlePinky82 advice and watch sicko. Thx. (Im not saying you will be brainwashed and in agreement but atleast we will have some common ground here) Medical care is not just an american right but a human right.
When people get cancer that used to mean they were dead just not yet... now it means with the right treatment they will most likely live. Espcially if caught early enough and the latest research seems to indicate a simple yearly blood test anyone can take that will reveal most cancers in the early stages.
Would you deny such a test to those without medical insurance because they cant afford the inflated price of the test that was driven up by the insurance companies?
LOL... All those insurance lobbyist in washington, wining and dining anyone that will listen and throwing money around like it was water... you buy into this whole BS line.
Honestly... are you parroting a website or someone else or have you done any research for yourself... Autodidact has been dead on or close too this whole thread and I for one admire the patience.
Alceste
Vagabond
Here's a good example of why it would be cheaper, based on my anecdote. My buddy gashed open his foot on old dirty metal, went to the hospital and had it cleaned and dressed in about 10 minutes. The American way would be to really consider whether it was worth the risk of infection to shell out to have it looked at by a nurse, and my buddy would not have been able to afford it anyway. So he would have just been contented with a bandaid and a wound that was not properly cleaned and dressed. If infection had set in, he'd have put off going to the doctor until it was an official "emergency" that would have gotten him treatment in an ER. That could mean blood poisoning, gangrene, amputation, death, god knows what - but it would have been expensive. Or maybe nothing would have happened and he would have been OK. But the point is you really don't want people to be thinking about the balance on their credit card when they are considering whether or not to have a wound properly looked at. Not when they can be in and out the door of a clinic with the risk of infection minimized or eradicated in under 10 minutes.
I had the same choice when I got on the wrong side of a rooster - I had a small wound but in a day or two my leg was going pink and numb. I had no money and no credit, but I wasn't officially "poor" - just on a long and frugal holiday. It didn't necessarily justify a trip to the ER, so what would have happened to me in the US if I couldn't pay? I went to a clinic and got a shot of antibiotics, problem solved. It's not the big, expensive emergencies, but little stupid things like this that give Canadians 3 extra years of life. We don't have to think before we see a doctor. We can just go.
I had the same choice when I got on the wrong side of a rooster - I had a small wound but in a day or two my leg was going pink and numb. I had no money and no credit, but I wasn't officially "poor" - just on a long and frugal holiday. It didn't necessarily justify a trip to the ER, so what would have happened to me in the US if I couldn't pay? I went to a clinic and got a shot of antibiotics, problem solved. It's not the big, expensive emergencies, but little stupid things like this that give Canadians 3 extra years of life. We don't have to think before we see a doctor. We can just go.
NoahideHiker
Religious Headbanger
Open question to all:
Name one single area where the federal government provides something cost effectively and better than private industry.
Name one single area where the federal government provides something cost effectively and better than private industry.
McBell
Admiral Obvious
Drive up the national debt.